The pacification of hazardous materials is a major problem facing the world today. The problem is particularly acute where the hazardous materials are contained within sealed containers, such as military cannon shells or warheads containing explosives, chemical warfare materials or other deadly materials.
Historically, many such hazardous materials have been pacified by incineration. However, there is increasing concern that the combustion products from such incineration pose a potential health risk. Accordingly, in some recently developed processes, hazardous materials were pacified by being contacted with one or more pacifying solutions.
In such solution pacification methods, a problem arises as to how to thoroughly decontaminate the metallic components which formerly made up the hazardous materials containers--without incineration methods.
Accordingly, there is a need for a non-incineration method for decontaminating hazardous material containers.